The Man with Two Left Feet & Other Stories - From the Manor Wodehouse Collection, a Selection from the Early Works of P. G. Wodehouse

The Man with Two Left Feet: and Other Stories (P. G. Wodehouse - Short Stories)

The Man with Two Left Feet: and Other Stories (P. G. Wodehouse)

The Novels of P. G. Wodehouse (33 novels +) [Illustrated]

The Man with Two Left Feet: P. G. Wodehouse

The Man with Two Left Feet

The Essential P. G. Wodehouse Collection (96 works) [Illustrated]

Man With Two Left Feet

The Man With Two Left Feet, and Others

The Short Stories of P.G. Wodehouse

Bear-Cat.

What they ought to do, in the Bear-Cat's opinion, was to get the oldman out into Washington Square one morning. He of Tennessee would thensasshay up in a flip manner and make a break. Ted, waiting close by,would resent his insolence. There would be words, followed by blows.

'See what I mean?' pursued the Bear-Cat. 'There's you and me mixing it.I'll square the cop on the beat to leave us be; he's a friend of mine.Pretty soon you land me one on the plexus, and I take th' count. Thenthere's you hauling me up by th' collar to the old gentleman, and mesaying I quits and apologizing. See what I mean?'

The whole, presumably, to conclude with warm expressions of gratitudeand esteem from Mr Bennett, and an instant withdrawal of the veto.

Ted himself approved of the scheme. He said it was a cracker-jaw, andhe wondered how one so notoriously ivory-skulled as the other couldhave had such an idea. The Bear-Cat said modestly that he had 'emsometimes. And it is probable that all would have been well, had it notbeen necessary to tell the plan to Katie, who was horrified at the veryidea, spoke warmly of the danger to her grandfather's nervous system,and said she did not think the Bear-Cat could be a nice friend for Ted.And matters relapsed into their old state of hopelessness.

And then, one day, Katie forced herself to tell Ted that she thought itwould be better if they did not see each other for a time. She saidthat these meetings were only a source of pain to both of them. Itwould really be better if he did not come round for--well, quite sometime.

It had not been easy for her to say it. The decision was the outcome ofmany wakeful nights. She had asked herself the question whether it wasfair for her to keep Ted chained to her in this hopeless fashion, when,left to himself and away from her, he might so easily find some othergirl to make him happy.

So Ted went, reluctantly, and the little shop on Sixth Avenue knew himno more. And Katie spent her time looking after old Mr Bennett (who hadcompletely forgotten the affair by now, and sometimes wondered whyKatie was not so cheerful as she had been), and--for, though unselfish,she was human--hating those unknown girls whom in her mind's eye shecould see clustering round Ted, smiling at him, making much of him, anddriving the bare recollection of her out of his mind.

The summer passed. July came and went, making New York an oven. Augustfollowed, and one wondered why one had complained of July's tepidadvances.

It was on the evening of September the eleventh that Katie, havingclosed the little shop, sat in the dusk on the steps, as many thousandsof her fellow-townsmen and townswomen were doing, turning her face tothe first breeze which New York had known for two months. The hot spellhad broken abruptly that afternoon, and the city was drinking in thecoolness as a flower drinks water.

From round the corner, where the yellow cross of the Judson Hotel shonedown on Washington Square, came the shouts of children, and thestrains, mellowed by distance, of the indefatigable barrel-organ whichhad played the same tunes in the same place since the spring.

Katie closed her eyes, and listened. It was very peaceful this evening,so peaceful that for an instant she forgot even to think of Ted. And itwas just during this instant that she heard his voice.

'That you, kid?'

He was standing before her, his hands in his pockets, one foot on thepavement, the other in the road; and if he was agitated, his voice didnot show it.

'Ted!'

'That's me. Can I see the old man for a minute, Katie?'

This time it did seem to her that she could detect a slight ring ofexcitement.

'It's no use, Ted. Honest.'

'No harm in going in and passing the time of day, is there? I've gotsomething I want to say to him.'

'What?'

'Tell you later, maybe. Is he in his room?'

He stepped past her, and went in. As he went, he caught her arm andpressed it, but he did not stop. She saw him go into the inner room andheard through the door as he closed it behind him, the murmur ofvoices. And almost immediately, it seemed to her, her name was called.It was her grandfather's voice which called, high and excited. The dooropened, and Ted appeared.

'Come here a minute, Katie, will you?' he said. 'You're wanted.'

The old man was leaning forward in his chair. He was in a state ofextraordinary excitement. He quivered and jumped. Ted, standing by thewall, looked as stolid as ever; but his eyes glittered.

'Katie,' cried the old man, 'this is a most remarkable piece of news.This gentleman has just been telling me--extraordinary. He--'

He broke off, and looked at Ted, as he had looked at Katie when he hadtried to write the letter to the Parliament of England.

Ted's eye, as it met Katie's, was almost defiant.

'I want to marry you,' he said.

'Yes, yes,' broke in Mr Bennett, impatiently, 'but--'

'And I'm a king.'

'Yes, yes, that's it, that's it, Katie. This gentleman is a king.'

Once more Ted's eye met Katie's, and this time there was an imploringlook in it.

'That's right,' he said, slowly. 'I've just been telling yourgrandfather I'm the King of Coney Island.'

'That's it. Of Coney Island.'

'So there's no objection now to us getting married, kid--Your RoyalHighness. It's a royal alliance, see?'

'A royal alliance,' echoed Mr Bennett.

Out in the street, Ted held Katie's hand, and grinned a littlesheepishly.

'You're mighty quiet, kid,' he said. 'It looks as if it don't make muchof a hit with you, the notion of being married to me.'

'Oh, Ted! But--'

He squeezed her hand.

'I know what you're thinking. I guess it was raw work pulling a talelike that on the old man. I hated to do it, but gee! when a fellow's upagainst it like I was, he's apt to grab most any chance that comesalong. Why, say, kid, it kind of looked to me as if it was sort of_meant_. Coming just now, like it did, just when it was wanted,and just when it didn't seem possible it could happen. Why, a week agoI was nigh on two hundred votes behind Billy Burton. The Irish-Americanput him up, and everybody thought he'd be King at the Mardi Gras. Andthen suddenly they came pouring in for me, till at the finish I hadBilly looking like a regular has-been.

'It's funny the way the voting jumps about every year in this Coneyelection. It was just Providence, and it didn't seem right to let it goby. So I went in to the old man, and told him. Say, I tell you I wasjust sweating when I got ready to hand it to him. It was an outsidechance he'd remember all about what the Mardi Gras at Coney was, andjust what being a king at it amounted to. Then I remembered you tellingme you'd never been to Coney, so I figured your grandfather wouldn't bewhat you'd call well fixed in his information about it, so I took thechance.

'I tried him out first. I tried him with Brooklyn. Why, say, from theway he took it, he'd either never heard of the place, or else he'dforgotten what it was. I guess he don't remember much, poor old fellow.Then I mentioned Yonkers. He asked me what Yonkers were. Then Ireckoned it was safe to bring on Coney, and he fell for it right away.I felt mean, but it had to be done.'

He caught her up, and swung her into the air with a perfectly impassiveface. Then, having kissed her, he lowered her gently to the groundagain. The action seemed to have relieved his feelings, for when hespoke again it was plain that his conscience no longer troubled him.

'And say,' he said, 'come to think of it, I don't see where there's somuch call for me to feel mean. I'm not so far short of being a regularking. Coney's just as big as some of those kingdoms you read about onthe other side; and, from what you see in the papers about thegoings-on there, it looks to me that, having a whole week on the thronelike I'm going to have, amounts to a pretty steady job as kings go.'

AT GEISENHEIMER'S

As I walked to Geisenheimer's that night I was feeling blue andrestless, tired of New York, tired of dancing, tired of everything.Broadway was full of people hurrying to the theatres. Cars rattled by.All the electric lights in the world were blazing down on the GreatWhite Way. And it all seemed stale and dreary to me.

Geisenheimer's was full as usual. All the tables were occupied, andthere were several couples already on the dancing-floor in the centre.The band was playing 'Michigan':

_I want to go back, I want to go back To the place where I was born. Far away from harm With a milk-pail on my arm._

I suppose the fellow who wrote that would have called for the police ifanyone had ever really tried to get him on to a farm, but he hascertainly put something into the tune which makes you think he meantwhat he said. It's a homesick tune, that.

I was just looking round for an empty table, when a man jumped up andcame towards me, registering joy as if I had been his long-lost sister.

He was from the country. I could see that. It was written all over him,from his face to his shoes.

He came up with his hand out, beaming.

'Why, Miss Roxborough!'

'Why not?' I said.

'Don't you remember me?'

I didn't.

'My name is Ferris.'

'It's a nice name, but it means nothing in my young life.'

'I was introduced to you last time I came here. We danced together.'

This seemed to bear the stamp of truth. If he was introduced to me, heprobably danced with me. It's what I'm at Geisenheimer's for.

'When was it?'

'A year ago last April.'

You can't beat these rural charmers. They think New York is folded upand put away in camphor when they leave, and only taken out again whenthey pay their next visit. The notion that anything could possibly havehappened since he was last in our midst to blur the memory of thathappy evening had not occurred to Mr Ferris. I suppose he was soaccustomed to dating things from 'when I was in New York' that hethought everybody else must do the same.

'Why, sure, I remember you,' I said. 'Algernon Clarence, isn't it?'

'Not Algernon Clarence. My name's Charlie.'

'My mistake. And what's the great scheme, Mr Ferris? Do you want todance with me again?'

He did. So we started. Mine not to reason why, mine but to do and die,as the poem says. If an elephant had come into Geisenheimer's and askedme to dance I'd have had to do it. And I'm not saying that Mr Ferriswasn't the next thing to it. He was one of those earnest, perseveringdancers--the kind that have taken twelve correspondence lessons.

I guess I was about due that night to meet someone from the country.There still come days in the spring when the country seems to get astranglehold on me and start in pulling. This particular day had beenone of them. I got up in the morning and looked out of the window, andthe breeze just wrapped me round and began whispering about pigs andchickens. And when I went out on Fifth Avenue there seemed to beflowers everywhere. I headed for the Park, and there was the grass allgreen, and the trees coming out, and a sort of something in theair--why, say, if there hadn't have been a big policeman keeping an eyeon me, I'd have flung myself down and bitten chunks out of the turf.

And as soon as I got to Geisenheimer's they played that 'Michigan'thing.

Why, Charlie from Squeedunk's 'entrance' couldn't have been betterworked up if he'd been a star in a Broadway show. The stage was justwaiting for him.

But somebody's always taking the joy out of life. I ought to haveremembered that the most metropolitan thing in the metropolis is arustic who's putting in a week there. We weren't thinking on the sameplane, Charlie and me. The way I had been feeling all day, what Iwanted to talk about was last season's crops. The subject he fanciedwas this season's chorus-girls. Our souls didn't touch by a mile and ahalf.

'This is the life!' he said.

There's always a point when that sort of man says that.

'I suppose you come here quite a lot?' he said.

'Pretty often.'

I didn't tell him that I came there every night, and that I camebecause I was paid for it. If you're a professional dancer atGeisenheimer's, you aren't supposed to advertise the fact. Themanagement thinks that if you did it might send the public awaythinking too hard when they saw you win the Great Contest for theLove-r-ly Silver Cup which they offer later in the evening. Say, thatLove-r-ly Cup's a joke. I win it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,and Mabel Francis wins it on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It'sall perfectly fair and square, of course. It's purely a matter of meritwho wins the Love-r-ly Cup. Anybody could win it. Only somehow theydon't. And the coincidence of the fact that Mabel and I always do haskind of got on the management's nerves, and they don't like us to tellpeople we're employed there. They prefer us to blush unseen.

'It's a great place,' said Mr Ferris, 'and New York's a great place.I'd like to live in New York.'

'The loss is ours. Why don't you?'

'Some city! But dad's dead now, and I've got the drugstore, you know.'

He spoke as if I ought to remember reading about it in the papers.

'And I'm making good with it, what's more. I've got push and ideas.Say, I got married since I saw you last.'

'You did, did you?' I said. 'Then what are you doing, may I ask,dancing on Broadway like a gay bachelor? I suppose you have left yourwife at Hicks' Corners, singing "Where is my wandering boy tonight"?'

'My fault,' I said; 'I lost step. Well, I wonder you aren't ashamedeven to think of your wife, when you've left her all alone out therewhile you come whooping it up in New York. Haven't you got anyconscience?'

'But I haven't left her. She's here.'

'In New York?'

'In this restaurant. That's her up there.'

I looked up at the balcony. There was a face hanging over the red plushrail. It looked to me as if it had some hidden sorrow. I'd noticed itbefore, when we were dancing around, and I had wondered what thetrouble was. Now I began to see.

'Why aren't you dancing with her and giving her a good time, then?' Isaid.

'Oh, she's having a good time.'

'She doesn't look it. She looks as if she would like to be down here,treading the measure.'

'She doesn't dance much.'

'Don't you have dances at Ashley?'

'It's different at home. She dances well enough for Ashley, but--well,this isn't Ashley.'

'I see. But you're not like that?'

He gave a kind of smirk.

'Oh, I've been in New York before.'

I could have bitten him, the sawn-off little rube! It made me mad. Hewas ashamed to dance in public with his wife--didn't think her goodenough for him. So he had dumped her in a chair, given her a lemonade,and told her to be good, and then gone off to have a good time. Theycould have had me arrested for what I was thinking just then.

So I took him off, and whisked him on to some girls I knew at one ofthe tables.

'Shake hands with my friend Mr Ferris,' I said. 'He wants to show youthe latest steps. He does most of them on your feet.'

I could have betted on Charlie, the Debonair Pride of Ashley. Guesswhat he said? He said, 'This is the life!'

And I left him, and went up to the balcony.

She was leaning with her elbows on the red plush, looking down on thedancing-floor. They had just started another tune, and hubby was movingaround with one of the girls I'd introduced him to. She didn't have toprove to me that she came from the country. I knew it. She was a littlebit of a thing, old-fashioned looking. She was dressed in grey, withwhite muslin collar and cuffs, and her hair done simple. She had ablack hat.

I kind of hovered for awhile. It isn't the best thing I do, being shy;as a general thing I'm more or less there with the nerve; but somehow Isort of hesitated to charge in.

Then I braced up, and made for the vacant chair.

'I'll sit here, if you don't mind,' I said.

She turned in a startled way. I could see she was wondering who I was,and what right I had there, but wasn't certain whether it might not becity etiquette for strangers to come and dump themselves down and startchatting. 'I've just been dancing with your husband,' I said, to easethings along.

'I saw you.'

She fixed me with a pair of big brown eyes. I took one look at them,and then I had to tell myself that it might be pleasant, and a reliefto my feelings, to take something solid and heavy and drop it over therail on to hubby, but the management wouldn't like it. That was how Ifelt about him just then. The poor kid was doing everything with thoseeyes except crying. She looked like a dog that's been kicked.

She looked away, and fiddled with the string of the electric light.There was a hatpin lying on the table. She picked it up, and began todig at the red plush.

'Ah, come on sis,' I said; 'tell me all about it.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'You can't fool me. Tell me your troubles.'

'I don't know you.'

'You don't have to know a person to tell her your troubles. I sometimestell mine to the cat that camps out on the wall opposite my room. Whatdid you want to leave the country for, with summer coming on?'

She didn't answer, but I could see it coming, so I sat still andwaited. And presently she seemed to make up her mind that, even if itwas no business of mine, it would be a relief to talk about it.

'We're on our honeymoon. Charlie wanted to come to New York. I didn'twant to, but he was set on it. He's been here before.'

'So he told me.'

'He's wild about New York.'

'But you're not.'

'I hate it.'

'Why?'

She dug away at the red plush with the hatpin, picking out little bitsand dropping them over the edge. I could see she was bracing herself toput me wise to the whole trouble. There's a time comes when thingsaren't going right, and you've had all you can stand, when you have gotto tell somebody about it, no matter who it is.

'I hate New York,' she said getting it out at last with a rush. 'I'mscared of it. It--it isn't fair Charlie bringing me here. I didn't wantto come. I knew what would happen. I felt it all along.'

'What do you think will happen, then?'

She must have picked away at least an inch of the red plush before sheanswered. It's lucky Jimmy, the balcony waiter, didn't see her; itwould have broken his heart; he's as proud of that red plush as if hehad paid for it himself.

'When I first went to live at Rodney,' she said, 'two years ago--wemoved there from Illinois--there was a man there named Tyson--JackTyson. He lived all alone and didn't seem to want to know anyone. Icouldn't understand it till somebody told me all about him. I canunderstand it now. Jack Tyson married a Rodney girl, and they came toNew York for their honeymoon, just like us. And when they got there Iguess she got to comparing him with the fellows she saw, and comparingthe city with Rodney, and when she got home she just couldn't settledown.'

'Well?'

'After they had been back in Rodney for a little while she ran away.Back to the city, I guess.'

'I suppose he got a divorce?'

'No, he didn't. He still thinks she may come back to him.'

'He still thinks she will come back?' I said. 'After she has been awaythree years!'

'Yes. He keeps her things just the same as she left them when she wentaway, everything just the same.'

'But isn't he angry with her for what she did? If I was a man and agirl treated me that way, I'd be apt to murder her if she tried to showup again.'

'He wouldn't. Nor would I, if--if anything like that happened to me;I'd wait and wait, and go on hoping all the time. And I'd go down tothe station to meet the train every afternoon, just like Jack Tyson.'

'I can't help it. Oh! I knew it would happen. It's happening right now.Look--look at him.'

I glanced over the rail, and I saw what she meant. There was herCharlie, dancing about all over the floor as if he had just discoveredthat he hadn't lived till then. I saw him say something to the girl hewas dancing with. I wasn't near enough to hear it, but I bet it was'This is the life!' If I had been his wife, in the same position asthis kid, I guess I'd have felt as bad as she did, for if ever a manexhibited all the symptoms of incurable Newyorkitis, it was thisCharlie Ferris.

'I'm not like these New York girls,' she choked. 'I can't be smart. Idon't want to be. I just want to live at home and be happy. I knew itwould happen if we came to the city. He doesn't think me good enoughfor him. He looks down on me.'

'Pull yourself together.'

'And I do love him so!'

Goodness knows what I should have said if I could have thought ofanything to say. But just then the music stopped, and somebody on thefloor below began to speak.

'Ladeez 'n' gemmen,' he said, 'there will now take place our greatNumbah Contest. This gen-u-ine sporting contest--'

It was Izzy Baermann making his nightly speech, introducing theLove-r-ly Cup; and it meant that, for me, duty called. From where I satI could see Izzy looking about the room, and I knew he was looking forme. It's the management's nightmare that one of these evenings Mabel orI won't show up, and somebody else will get away with the Love-r-lyCup.

'Sorry I've got to go,' I said. 'I have to be in this.'

And then suddenly I had the great idea. It came to me like a flash, Ilooked at her, crying there, and I looked over the rail at Charlie theBoy Wonder, and I knew that this was where I got a stranglehold on myplace in the Hall of Fame, along with the great thinkers of the age.

'It may have escaped your notice,' I said, 'but your Charlie is not theonly man in New York, or even in this restaurant. I'm going to dancewith Charlie myself, and I'll introduce you to someone who can gothrough the movements. Listen!'

'The lady of each couple'--this was Izzy, getting it off hisdiaphragm--'will receive a ticket containing a num-bah. The dance willthen proceed, and the num-bahs will be eliminated one by one, thosecalled out by the judge kindly returning to their seats as theirnum-bah is called. The num-bah finally remaining is the winningnum-bah. The contest is a genuine sporting contest, decided purely bythe skill of the holders of the various num-bahs.' (Izzy stoppedblushing at the age of six.) 'Will ladies now kindly step forward andreceive their num-bahs. The winner, the holder of the num-bah left onthe floor when the other num-bahs have been eliminated' (I could seeIzzy getting more and more uneasy, wondering where on earth I'd gotto), 'will receive this Love-r-ly Silver Cup, presented by themanagement. Ladies will now kindly step forward and receive theirnum-bahs.'

I turned to Mrs Charlie. 'There,' I said, 'don't you want to win aLove-r-ly Silver Cup?'

'But I couldn't.'

'You never know your luck.'

'But it isn't luck. Didn't you hear him say it's a contest decidedpurely by skill?'

'Well, try your skill, then.' I felt as if I could have shaken her.'For goodness' sake,' I said, 'show a little grit. Aren't you going tostir a finger to keep your Charlie? Suppose you win, think what it willmean. He will look up to you for the rest of your life. When he startstalking about New York, all you will have to say is, "New York? Ah,yes, that was the town I won that Love-r-ly Silver Cup in, was it not?"and he'll drop as if you had hit him behind the ear with a sandbag.Pull yourself together and try.'

I saw those brown eyes of hers flash, and she said, 'I'll try.'

'Good for you,' I said. 'Now you get those tears dried, and fixyourself up, and I'll go down and get the tickets.'

Izzy was mighty relieved when I bore down on him.

'Gee!' he said, 'I thought you had run away, or was sick or something.Here's your ticket.'

'I want two, Izzy. One's for a friend of mine. And I say, Izzy, I'dtake it as a personal favour if you would let her stop on the floor asone of the last two couples. There's a reason. She's a kid from thecountry, and she wants to make a hit.'

'Sure, that'll be all right. Here are the tickets. Yours is thirty-six,hers is ten.' He lowered his voice. 'Don't go mixing them.'

I went back to the balcony. On the way I got hold of Charlie.

'We're dancing this together,' I said.

He grinned all across his face.

I found Mrs Charlie looking as if she had never shed a tear in herlife. She certainly had pluck, that kid.

I guess you've seen these sporting contests at Geisenheimer's. Or, ifyou haven't seen them at Geisenheimer's, you've seen them somewhereelse. They're all the same.

When we began, the floor was so crowded that there was hardlyelbow-room. Don't tell me there aren't any optimists nowadays. Everyonewas looking as if they were wondering whether to have the Love-r-ly Cupin the sitting-room or the bedroom. You never saw such a hopeful gangin your life.

Presently Izzy gave tongue. The management expects him to be humorouson these occasions, so he did his best.

A plump girl in a red hat, who had been dancing with a kind smile, asif she were doing it to amuse the children, left the floor.

'Num-bahs six, fifteen, and twenty, thumbs down!'

And pretty soon the only couples left were Charlie and me, Mrs Charlieand the fellow I'd introduced her to, and a bald-headed man and a girlin a white hat. He was one of your stick-at-it performers. He had beendancing all the evening. I had noticed him from the balcony. He lookedlike a hard-boiled egg from up there.

He was a trier all right, that fellow, and had things been otherwise,so to speak, I'd have been glad to see him win. But it was not to be.Ah, no!

'Num-bah nineteen, you're getting all flushed. Take a rest.'

So there it was, a straight contest between me and Charlie and MrsCharlie and her man. Every nerve in my system was tingling withsuspense and excitement, was it not? It was not.

Charlie, as I've already hinted, was not a dancer who took much of hisattention off his feet while in action. He was there to do hisdurnedest, not to inspect objects of interest by the wayside. Thecorrespondence college he'd attended doesn't guarantee to teach you todo two things at once. It won't bind itself to teach you to look roundthe room while you're dancing. So Charlie hadn't the least suspicion ofthe state of the drama. He was breathing heavily down my neck in adetermined sort of way, with his eyes glued to the floor. All he knewwas that the competition had thinned out a bit, and the honour ofAshley, Maine, was in his hands.

You know how the public begins to sit up and take notice when thesedance-contests have been narrowed down to two couples. There areevenings when I quite forget myself, when I'm one of the last two leftin, and get all excited. There's a sort of hum in the air, and, as yougo round the room, people at the tables start applauding. Why, if youdidn't know about the inner workings of the thing, you'd be all of atwitter.

It didn't take my practised ear long to discover that it wasn't me andCharlie that the great public was cheering for. We would go round thefloor without getting a hand, and every time Mrs Charlie and her guygot to a corner there was a noise like election night. She sure hadmade a hit.

I took a look at her across the floor, and I didn't wonder. She was adifferent kid from what she'd been upstairs. I never saw anybody lookso happy and pleased with herself. Her eyes were like lamps, and hercheeks all pink, and she was going at it like a champion. I knew whathad made a hit with the people. It was the look of her. She made youthink of fresh milk and new-laid eggs and birds singing. To see her waslike getting away to the country in August. It's funny about people wholive in the city. They chuck out their chests, and talk about littleold New York being good enough for them, and there's a street in heaventhey call Broadway, and all the rest of it; but it seems to me thatwhat they really live for is that three weeks in the summer when theyget away into the country. I knew exactly why they were cheering sohard for Mrs Charlie. She made them think of their holidays which werecoming along, when they would go and board at the farm and drink out ofthe old oaken bucket, and call the cows by their first names.

Gee! I felt just like that myself. All day the country had been tuggingat me, and now it tugged worse than ever.

I could have smelled the new-mown hay if it wasn't that when you're inGeisenheimer's you have to smell Geisenheimer's, because it leaves nochance for competition.

'Keep working,' I said to Charlie. 'It looks to me as if we are goingback in the betting.'

'Uh, huh!' he says, too busy to blink.

'Do some of those fancy steps of yours. We need them in our business.'

And the way that boy worked--it was astonishing!

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Izzy Baermann, and he wasn'tlooking happy. He was nerving himself for one of those quick referee'sdecisions--the sort you make and then duck under the ropes, and runfive miles, to avoid the incensed populace. It was this kind of thinghappening every now and then that prevented his job being perfect.Mabel Francis told me that one night when Izzy declared her the winnerof the great sporting contest, it was such raw work that she thoughtthere'd have been a riot. It looked pretty much as if he was afraid thesame thing was going to happen now. There wasn't a doubt which of ustwo couples was the one that the customers wanted to see win thatLove-r-ly Silver Cup. It was a walk-over for Mrs Charlie, and Charlieand I were simply among those present.

But Izzy had his duty to do, and drew a salary for doing it, so hemoistened his lips, looked round to see that his strategic railwaysweren't blocked, swallowed twice, and said in a husky voice:

'Num-bah ten, please re-tiah!'

I stopped at once.

'Come along,' said I to Charlie. 'That's our exit cue.'

And we walked off the floor amidst applause.

'Well,' says Charlie, taking out his handkerchief and attending to hisbrow, which was like the village blacksmith's, 'we didn't do so bad,did we? We didn't do so bad, I guess! We--'

And he looked up at the balcony, expecting to see the dear little wife,draped over the rail, worshipping him; when, just as his eye is movingup, it gets caught by the sight of her a whole heap lower down than hehad expected--on the floor, in fact.

She wasn't doing much in the worshipping line just at that moment. Shewas too busy.

It was a regular triumphal progress for the kid. She and her partnerwere doing one or two rounds now for exhibition purposes, like thewinning couple always do at Geisenheimer's, and the room was fairlyrising at them. You'd have thought from the way they were clapping thatthey had been betting all their spare cash on her.

Charlie gets her well focused, then he lets his jaw drop, till hepretty near bumped it against the floor.

'But--but--but--' he begins.

'I know,' I said. 'It begins to look as if she could dance well enoughfor the city after all. It begins to look as if she had sort of put oneover on somebody, don't it? It begins to look as if it were a pity youdidn't think of dancing with her yourself.'

'I--I--I--'

'You come along and have a nice cold drink,' I said, 'and you'll soonpick up.'

He tottered after me to a table, looking as if he had been hit by astreet-car. He had got his.

I was so busy looking after Charlie, flapping the towel and working onhim with the oxygen, that, if you'll believe me, it wasn't for quite atime that I thought of glancing around to see how the thing had struckIzzy Baermann.

If you can imagine a fond father whose only son has hit him with abrick, jumped on his stomach, and then gone off with all his money, youhave a pretty good notion of how poor old Izzy looked. He was staringat me across the room, and talking to himself and jerking his handsabout. Whether he thought he was talking to me, or whether he wasrehearsing the scene where he broke it to the boss that a mere strangerhad got away with his Love-r-ly Silver Cup, I don't know. Whichever itwas, he was being mighty eloquent.

I gave him a nod, as much as to say that it would all come right in thefuture, and then I turned to Charlie again. He was beginning to pickup.

'She won the cup!' he said in a dazed voice, looking at me as if Icould do something about it.

'You bet she did!'

'But--well, what do you know about that?'

I saw that the moment had come to put it straight to him. 'I'll tellyou what I know about it,' I said. 'If you take my advice, you'll hustlethat kid straight back to Ashley--or wherever it is that you said youpoison the natives by making up the wrong prescriptions--before shegets New York into her system. When I was talking to her upstairs, shewas telling me about a fellow in her village who got it in the neckjust the same as you're apt to do.'

He started. 'She was telling you about Jack Tyson?'

'That was his name--Jack Tyson. He lost his wife through letting herhave too much New York. Don't you think it's funny she should havementioned him if she hadn't had some idea that she might act just thesame as his wife did?'

He turned quite green.

'You don't think she would do that?'

'Well, if you'd heard her--She couldn't talk of anything except thisTyson, and what his wife did to him. She talked of it sort of sad, kindof regretful, as if she was sorry, but felt that it had to be. I couldsee she had been thinking about it a whole lot.'

Charlie stiffened in his seat, and then began to melt with pure fright.He took up his empty glass with a shaking hand and drank a long drinkout of it. It didn't take much observation to see that he had had thejolt he wanted, and was going to be a whole heap less jaunty andmetropolitan from now on. In fact, the way he looked, I should say hehad finished with metropolitan jauntiness for the rest of his life.

'I'll take her home tomorrow,' he said. 'But--will she come?'

'That's up to you. If you can persuade her--Here she is now. I shouldstart at once.'

Mrs Charlie, carrying the cup, came to the table. I was wondering whatwould be the first thing she would say. If it had been Charlie, ofcourse he'd have said, 'This is the life!' but I looked for somethingsnappier from her. If I had been in her place there were at least tenthings I could have thought of to say, each nastier than the other.

She sat down and put the cup on the table. Then she gave the cup a longlook. Then she drew a deep breath. Then she looked at Charlie.

'Oh, Charlie, dear,' she said, 'I do wish I'd been dancing with you!'

Well, I'm not sure that that wasn't just as good as anything I wouldhave said. Charlie got right off the mark. After what I had told him,he wasn't wasting any time.

'Darling,' he said, humbly, 'you're a wonder! What will they say aboutthis at home?' He did pause here for a moment, for it took nerve to sayit; but then he went right on. 'Mary, how would it be if we went homeright away--first train tomorrow, and showed it to them?'

'Oh, Charlie!' she said.

His face lit up as if somebody had pulled a switch.

'You will? You don't want to stop on? You aren't wild about New York?'

'If there was a train,' she said, 'I'd start tonight. But I thought youloved the city so, Charlie?'

He gave a kind of shiver. 'I never want to see it again in my life!' hesaid.

And I crossed over to where Izzy had been standing for the last fiveminutes, making signals to me with his eyebrows.

You couldn't have called Izzy coherent at first. He certainly hadtrouble with his vocal chords, poor fellow. There was one of thoseAfrican explorer men used to come to Geisenheimer's a lot when he washome from roaming the trackless desert, and he used to tell me abouttribes he had met who didn't use real words at all, but talked to oneanother in clicks and gurgles. He imitated some of their chatter onenight to amuse me, and, believe me, Izzy Baermann started talking thesame language now. Only he didn't do it to amuse me.

He was like one of those gramophone records when it's getting into itsstride.

'It was a lucky mistake, Izzy. It saved your life. The people wouldhave lynched you if you had given me the cup. They were solid for her.'

'What's the boss going to say when I tell him?'

'Never mind what the boss will say. Haven't you any romance in yoursystem, Izzy? Look at those two sitting there with their headstogether. Isn't it worth a silver cup to have made them happy for life?They are on their honeymoon, Isadore. Tell the boss exactly how ithappened, and say that I thought it was up to Geisenheimer's to givethem a wedding-present.'

He clicked for a spell.

'Ah!' he said. 'Ah! now you've done it! Now you've given yourself away!You did it on purpose. You mixed those tickets on purpose. I thought asmuch. Say, who do you think you are, doing this sort of thing? Don'tyou know that professional dancers are three for ten cents? I could goout right now and whistle, and get a dozen girls for your job. Theboss'll sack you just one minute after I tell him.'

'No, he won't, Izzy, because I'm going to resign.'

'You'd better!'

'That's what I think. I'm sick of this place, Izzy. I'm sick ofdancing. I'm sick of New York. I'm sick of everything. I'm going backto the country. I thought I had got the pigs and chickens clear out ofmy system, but I hadn't. I've suspected it for a long, long time, andtonight I know it. Tell the boss, with my love, that I'm sorry, but ithad to be done. And if he wants to talk back, he must do it by letter:Mrs John Tyson, Rodney, Maine, is the address.'

THE MAKING OF MAC'S

Mac's Restaurant--nobody calls it MacFarland's--is a mystery. It is offthe beaten track. It is not smart. It does not advertise. It providesnothing nearer to an orchestra than a solitary piano, yet, with allthese things against it, it is a success. In theatrical circlesespecially it holds a position which might turn the white lights ofmany a supper-palace green with envy.

This is mysterious. You do not expect Soho to compete with and eveneclipse Piccadilly in this way. And when Soho does so compete, there isgenerally romance of some kind somewhere in the background.

Somebody happened to mention to me casually that Henry, the old waiter,had been at Mac's since its foundation.

'Me?' said Henry, questioned during a slack spell in the afternoon.'Rather!'

'Then can you tell me what it was that first gave the place the impetuswhich started it on its upward course? What causes should you say wereresponsible for its phenomenal prosperity? What--'

'What gave it a leg-up? Is that what you're trying to get at?'

'Exactly. What gave it a leg-up? Can you tell me?'

'Me?' said Henry. 'Rather!'

And he told me this chapter from the unwritten history of the Londonwhose day begins when Nature's finishes.

* * * * *

Old Mr MacFarland (_said Henry_) started the place fifteen yearsago. He was a widower with one son and what you might call half adaughter. That's to say, he had adopted her. Katie was her name, andshe was the child of a dead friend of his. The son's name was Andy. Alittle freckled nipper he was when I first knew him--one of thosesilent kids that don't say much and have as much obstinacy in them asif they were mules. Many's the time, in them days, I've clumped him onthe head and told him to do something; and he didn't run yelling to hispa, same as most kids would have done, but just said nothing and wenton not doing whatever it was I had told him to do. That was the sort ofdisposition Andy had, and it grew on him. Why, when he came back fromOxford College the time the old man sent for him--what I'm going totell you about soon--he had a jaw on him like the ram of a battleship.Katie was the kid for my money. I liked Katie. We all liked Katie.

Old MacFarland started out with two big advantages. One was Jules, andthe Other was me. Jules came from Paris, and he was the greatest cookyou ever seen. And me--well, I was just come from ten years as waiterat the Guelph, and I won't conceal it from you that I gave the place atone. I gave Soho something to think about over its chop, believe me.It was a come-down in the world for me, maybe, after the Guelph, butwhat I said to myself was that, when you get a tip in Soho, it may beonly tuppence, but you keep it; whereas at the Guelph about ninety-ninehundredths of it goes to helping to maintain some blooming head waiterin the style to which he has been accustomed. It was through my kind ofharping on that fact that me and the Guelph parted company. The headwaiter complained to the management the day I called him a fat-headedvampire.

Well, what with me and what with Jules, MacFarland's--it wasn't Mac'sin them days--began to get a move on. Old MacFarland, who knew a goodman when he saw one and always treated me more like a brother thananything else, used to say to me, 'Henry, if this keeps up, I'll beable to send the boy to Oxford College'; until one day he changed itto, 'Henry, I'm going to send the boy to Oxford College'; and nextyear, sure enough, off he went.

Katie was sixteen then, and she had just been given the cashier job, asa treat. She wanted to do something to help the old man, so he put heron a high chair behind a wire cage with a hole in it, and she gave thecustomers their change. And let me tell you, mister, that a man thatwasn't satisfied after he'd had me serve him a dinner cooked by Julesand then had a chat with Katie through the wire cage would have grousedat Paradise. For she was pretty, was Katie, and getting prettier everyday. I spoke to the boss about it. I said it was putting temptation inthe girl's way to set her up there right in the public eye, as it were.And he told me to hop it. So I hopped it.

Katie was wild about dancing. Nobody knew it till later, but all thiswhile, it turned out, she was attending regular one of them schools.That was where she went to in the afternoons, when we all thought shewas visiting girl friends. It all come out after, but she fooled usthen. Girls are like monkeys when it comes to artfulness. She called meUncle Bill, because she said the name Henry always reminded her of coldmutton. If it had been young Andy that had said it I'd have clumped himone; but he never said anything like that. Come to think of it, henever said anything much at all. He just thought a heap without openinghis face.

So young Andy went off to college, and I said to him, 'Now then, youyoung devil, you be a credit to us, or I'll fetch you a clip when youcome home.' And Katie said, 'Oh, Andy, I _shall_ miss you.' AndAndy didn't say nothing to me, and he didn't say nothing to Katie, buthe gave her a look, and later in the day I found her crying, and shesaid she'd got toothache, and I went round the corner to the chemist'sand brought her something for it.

It was in the middle of Andy's second year at college that the old manhad the stroke which put him out of business. He went down under it asif he'd been hit with an axe, and the doctor tells him he'll never beable to leave his bed again.

So they sent for Andy, and he quit his college, and come back to Londonto look after the restaurant.

I was sorry for the kid. I told him so in a fatherly kind of way. Andhe just looked at me and says, 'Thanks very much, Henry.'

'What must be must be,' I says. 'Maybe, it's all for the best. Maybeit's better you're here than in among all those young devils in yourOxford school what might be leading you astray.'

'If you would think less of me and more of your work, Henry,' he says,'perhaps that gentleman over there wouldn't have to shout sixteen timesfor the waiter.'

Which, on looking into it, I found to be the case, and he went awaywithout giving me no tip, which shows what you lose in a hard world bybeing sympathetic.

I'm bound to say that young Andy showed us all jolly quick that hehadn't come home just to be an ornament about the place. There wasexactly one boss in the restaurant, and it was him. It come a littlehard at first to have to be respectful to a kid whose head you hadspent many a happy hour clumping for his own good in the past; but hepretty soon showed me I could do it if I tried, and I done it. As forJules and the two young fellers that had been taken on to help me owingto increase of business, they would jump through hoops and roll over ifhe just looked at them. He was a boy who liked his own way, was Andy,and, believe me, at MacFarland's Restaurant he got it.

And then, when things had settled down into a steady jog, Katie tookthe bit in her teeth.

She done it quite quiet and unexpected one afternoon when there wasonly me and her and Andy in the place. And I don't think either of themknew I was there, for I was taking an easy on a chair at the back,reading an evening paper.

She said, kind of quiet, 'Oh, Andy.'

'Yes, darling,' he said.

And that was the first I knew that there was anything between them.

'Andy, I've something to tell you.'

'What is it?'

She kind of hesitated.

'Andy, dear, I shan't be able to help any more in the restaurant.'

He looked at her, sort of surprised.

'What do you mean?'

'I'm--I'm going on the stage.'

I put down my paper. What do you mean? Did I listen? Of course Ilistened. What do you take me for?

From where I sat I could see young Andy's face, and I didn't need anymore to tell me there was going to be trouble. That jaw of his wasright out. I forgot to tell you that the old man had died, poor oldfeller, maybe six months before, so that now Andy was the real bossinstead of just acting boss; and what's more, in the nature of things,he was, in a manner of speaking, Katie's guardian, with power to tellher what she could do and what she couldn't. And I felt that Katiewasn't going to have any smooth passage with this stage business whichshe was giving him. Andy didn't hold with the stage--not with any girlhe was fond of being on it anyway. And when Andy didn't like a thing hesaid so.

And then it came out about this dancing-school she'd been attendingregular.

When she'd finished telling him about it, he just shoved out his jawanother inch.

'You aren't going on the stage.'

'But it's such a chance. I saw Mr Mandelbaum yesterday, and he saw medance, and he was very pleased, and said he would give me a solo danceto do in this new piece he's putting on.'

'You aren't going on the stage.'

What I always say is, you can't beat tact. If you're smooth and tactfulyou can get folks to do anything you want; but if you just shove yourjaw out at them, and order them about, why, then they get their backsup and sauce you. I knew Katie well enough to know that she would doanything for Andy, if he asked her properly; but she wasn't going tostand this sort of thing. But you couldn't drive that into the head ofa feller like young Andy with a steam-hammer.

She flared up, quick, as if she couldn't hold herself in no longer.

'I certainly am,' she said.

'You know what it means?'

'What does it mean?'

'The end of--everything.'

She kind of blinked as if he'd hit her, then she chucks her chin up.

'Very well,' she says. 'Good-bye.'

'Good-bye,' says Andy, the pig-headed young mule; and she walks out oneway and he walks out another.

* * * * *

I don't follow the drama much as a general rule, but seeing that it wasnow, so to speak, in the family, I did keep an eye open for thenewspaper notices of 'The Rose Girl', which was the name of the piecewhich Mr Mandelbaum was letting Katie do a solo dance in; and whilesome of them cussed the play considerable, they all gave Katie a niceword. One feller said that she was like cold water on the morningafter, which is high praise coming from a newspaper man.

There wasn't a doubt about it. She was a success. You see, she wassomething new, and London always sits up and takes notice when you giveit that.

There were pictures of her in the papers, and one evening paper had apiece about 'How I Preserve My Youth' signed by her. I cut it out andshowed it to Andy.

He gave it a look. Then he gave me a look, and I didn't like his eye.

'Well?' he says.

'Pardon,' I says.

'What about it?' he says.

'I don't know,' I says.

'Get back to your work,' he says.

So I got back.

It was that same night that the queer thing happened.

We didn't do much in the supper line at MacFarland's as a rule in themdays, but we kept open, of course, in case Soho should take it into itshead to treat itself to a welsh rabbit before going to bed; so allhands was on deck, ready for the call if it should come, at half pasteleven that night; but we weren't what you might term sanguine.

Well, just on the half-hour, up drives a taxicab, and in comes a partyof four. There was a nut, another nut, a girl, and another girl. Andthe second girl was Katie.

'Hallo, Uncle Bill!' she says.

'Good evening, madam,' I says dignified, being on duty.

'Oh, stop it, Uncle Bill,' she says. 'Say "Hallo!" to a pal, and smileprettily, or I'll tell them about the time you went to the White City.'

Well, there's some bygones that are best left bygones, and the night atthe White City what she was alluding to was one of them. I stillmaintain, as I always shall maintain, that the constable had no rightto--but, there, it's a story that wouldn't interest you. And, anyway,I was glad to see Katie again, so I give her a smile.

'Not so much of it,' I says. 'Not so much of it. I'm glad to see you,Katie.'

'Three cheers! Jimmy, I want to introduce you to my friend, Uncle Bill.Ted, this is Uncle Bill. Violet, this is Uncle Bill.'

If wasn't my place to fetch her one on the side of the head, but I'd ofliked to have; for she was acting like she'd never used to act when Iknew her--all tough and bold. Then it come to me that she was nervous.And natural, too, seeing young Andy might pop out any moment.

And sure enough out he popped from the back room at that very instant.Katie looked at him, and he looked at Katie, and I seen his face getkind of hard; but he didn't say a word. And presently he went outagain.

I heard Katie breathe sort of deep.

'He's looking well, Uncle Bill, ain't he?' she says to me, very soft.

'Pretty fair,' I says. 'Well, kid, I been reading the pieces in thepapers. You've knocked 'em.'

'Ah, don't Bill,' she says, as if I'd hurt her. And me meaning only tosay the civil thing. Girls are rum.

When the party had paid their bill and give me a tip which made methink I was back at the Guelph again--only there weren't any DickTurpin of a head waiter standing by for his share--they hopped it. ButKatie hung back and had a word with me.

So, to cheer her up, I tells her about the piece in the paper I showedhim; but it didn't seem to cheer her up any. And she goes out.

The very next night in she come again for supper, but with differentnuts and different girls. There was six of them this time, countingher. And they'd hardly sat down at their table, when in come thefellers she had called Jimmy and Ted with two girls. And they sateating of their suppers and chaffing one another across the floor, allas pleasant and sociable as you please.

'I say, Katie,' I heard one of the nuts say, 'you were right. He'sworth the price of admission.'

I don't know who they meant, but they all laughed. And every now andagain I'd hear them praising the food, which I don't wonder at, forJules had certainly done himself proud. All artistic temperament, theseFrenchmen are. The moment I told him we had company, so to speak, heblossomed like a flower does when you put it in water.

'Ah, see, at last!' he says, trying to grab me and kiss me. 'Our famehas gone abroad in the world which amuses himself, ain't it? For a goodsupper connexion I have always prayed, and he has arrived.'

Well, it did begin to look as if he was right. Ten high-classsupper-folk in an evening was pretty hot stuff for MacFarland's. I'mbound to say I got excited myself. I can't deny that I missed theGuelph at times.

On the fifth night, when the place was fairly packed and looked for allthe world like Oddy's or Romano's, and me and the two young fellershelping me was working double tides, I suddenly understood, and I wentup to Katie and, bending over her very respectful with a bottle, Iwhispers, 'Hot stuff, kid. This is a jolly fine boom you're working forthe old place.' And by the way she smiled back at me, I seen I hadguessed right.

Andy was hanging round, keeping an eye on things, as he always done,and I says to him, when I was passing, 'She's doing us proud, buckingup the old place, ain't she?' And he says, 'Get on with your work.' AndI got on.

Katie hung back at the door, when she was on her way out, and had aword with me.

'Has he said anything about me, Uncle Bill?'

'Not a word,' I says.

And she goes out.

You've probably noticed about London, mister, that a flock of sheepisn't in it with the nuts, the way they all troop on each other's heelsto supper-places. One month they're all going to one place, next monthto another. Someone in the push starts the cry that he's found a newplace, and off they all go to try it. The trouble with most of theplaces is that once they've got the custom they think it's going tokeep on coming and all they've got to do is to lean back and watch itcome. Popularity comes in at the door, and good food and good serviceflies out at the window. We wasn't going to have any of that atMacFarland's. Even if it hadn't been that Andy would have come downlike half a ton of bricks on the first sign of slackness, Jules and meboth of us had our professional reputations to keep up. I didn't givemyself no airs when I seen things coming our way. I worked all theharder, and I seen to it that the four young fellers under me--therewas four now--didn't lose no time fetching of the orders.

The consequence was that the difference between us and most popularrestaurants was that we kept our popularity. We fed them well, and weserved them well; and once the thing had started rolling it didn'tstop. Soho isn't so very far away from the centre of things, when youcome to look at it, and they didn't mind the extra step, seeing thatthere was something good at the end of it. So we got our popularity,and we kept our popularity; and we've got it to this day. That's howMacFarland's came to be what it is, mister.

* * * * *

With the air of one who has told a well-rounded tale, Henry ceased, andobserved that it was wonderful the way Mr Woodward, of Chelsea,preserved his skill in spite of his advanced years.

As time went on, I begin to get pretty fed up with young Andy. He wasmaking a fortune as fast as any feller could out of the sudden boom inthe supper-custom, and he knowing perfectly well that if it hadn't ofbeen for Katie there wouldn't of been any supper-custom at all; andyou'd of thought that anyone claiming to be a human being would havehad the gratitood to forgive and forget and go over and say a civilword to Katie when she come in. But no, he just hung round lookingblack at all of them; and one night he goes and fairly does it.

The place was full that night, and Katie was there, and the pianogoing, and everybody enjoying themselves, when the young feller at thepiano struck up the tune what Katie danced to in the show. Catchy tuneit was. 'Lum-tum-tum, tiddle-iddle-um.' Something like that it went.Well, the young feller struck up with it, and everybody begin clappingand hammering on the tables and hollering to Katie to get up and dance;which she done, in an open space in the middle, and she hadn't hardlystarted when along come young Andy.

He goes up to her, all jaw, and I seen something that wanted dusting onthe table next to 'em, so I went up and began dusting it, so by goodluck I happened to hear the whole thing.

He says to her, very quiet, 'You can't do that here. What do you thinkthis place is?'

And she says to him, 'Oh, Andy!'

'I'm very much obliged to you,' he says, 'for all the trouble youseem to be taking, but it isn't necessary. MacFarland's got on verywell before your well-meant efforts to turn it into a bear-garden.'

And him coining the money from the supper-custom! Sometimes Ithink gratitood's a thing of the past and this world not fit fora self-respecting rattlesnake to live in.

'Andy!' she says.

'That's all. We needn't argue about it. If you want to come here andhave supper, I can't stop you. But I'm not going to have the placeturned into a night-club.'

I don't know when I've heard anything like it. If it hadn't of beenthat I hadn't of got the nerve, I'd have give him a look.

Katie didn't say another word, but just went back to her table.

But the episode, as they say, wasn't conclooded. As soon as the partyshe was with seen that she was through dancing, they begin to kick up arow; and one young nut with about an inch and a quarter of forehead andthe same amount of chin kicked it up especial.

'I must ask you, please, not to make so much noise,' he says, quiterespectful. 'You are disturbing people.'

'Disturbing be damned! Why shouldn't she--'

'One moment. You can make all the noise you please out in the street,but as long as you stay in here you'll be quiet. Do you understand?'

Up jumps the nut. He'd had quite enough to drink. I know, because I'dbeen serving him.

'Who the devil are you?' he says.

'Sit down,' says Andy.

And the young feller took a smack at him. And the next moment Andy hadhim by the collar and was chucking him out in a way that would havedone credit to a real professional down Whitechapel way. He dumped himon the pavement as neat as you please.

That broke up the party.

You can never tell with restaurants. What kills one makes another. I'veno doubt that if we had chucked out a good customer from the Guelphthat would have been the end of the place. But it only seemed to doMacFarland's good. I guess it gave just that touch to the place whichmade the nuts think that this was real Bohemia. Come to think of it, itdoes give a kind of charm to a place, if you feel that at any momentthe feller at the next table to you may be gathered up by the slack ofhis trousers and slung into the street.

Anyhow, that's the way our supper-custom seemed to look at it; andafter that you had to book a table in advance if you wanted to eat withus. They fairly flocked to the place.

But Katie didn't. She didn't flock. She stayed away. And no wonder,after Andy behaving so bad. I'd of spoke to him about it, only hewasn't the kind of feller you do speak to about things.

One day I says to him to cheer him up, 'What price this restaurant now,Mr Andy?'

'Curse the restaurant,' he says.

And him with all that supper-custom! It's a rum world!

Mister, have you ever had a real shock--something that came out ofnowhere and just knocked you flat? I have, and I'm going to tell youabout it.

When a man gets to be my age, and has a job of work which keeps himbusy till it's time for him to go to bed, he gets into the habit of notdoing much worrying about anything that ain't shoved right under hisnose. That's why, about now, Katie had kind of slipped my mind. Itwasn't that I wasn't fond of the kid, but I'd got so much to thinkabout, what with having four young fellers under me and things being insuch a rush at the restaurant that, if I thought of her at all, I justtook it for granted that she was getting along all right, and didn'tbother. To be sure we hadn't seen nothing of her at MacFarland's sincethe night when Andy bounced her pal with the small size in foreheads,but that didn't worry me. If I'd been her, I'd have stopped away thesame as she done, seeing that young Andy still had his hump. I took itfor granted, as I'm telling you, that she was all right, and that thereason we didn't see nothing of her was that she was taking herpatronage elsewhere.

And then, one evening, which happened to be my evening off, I got aletter, and for ten minutes after I read it I was knocked flat.

You get to believe in fate when you get to be my age, and fate certainlyhad taken a hand in this game. If it hadn't of been my evening off,don't you see, I wouldn't have got home till one o'clock or past thatin the morning, being on duty. Whereas, seeing it was my evening off,I was back at half past eight.

I was living at the same boarding-house in Bloomsbury what I'd lived atfor the past ten years, and when I got there I find her letter shovedhalf under my door.

I can tell you every word of it. This is how it went:

_Darling Uncle Bill,_

_Don't be too sorry when you read this. It is nobody's fault, but I am just tired of everything, and I want to end it all. You have been such a dear to me always that I want you to be good to me now. I should not like Andy to know the truth, so I want you to make it seem as if it had happened naturally. You will do this for me, won't you? It will be quite easy. By the time you get this, it will be one, and it will all be over, and you can just come up and open the window and let the gas out and then everyone will think I just died naturally. It will be quite easy. I am leaving the door unlocked so that you can get in. I am in the room just above yours. I took it yesterday, so as to be near you. Good-bye, Uncle Bill. You will do it for me, won't you? I don't want Andy to know what it really was._

KATIE

That was it, mister, and I tell you it floored me. And then it come tome, kind of as a new idea, that I'd best do something pretty soon, andup the stairs I went quick.

There she was, on the bed, with her eyes closed, and the gas justbeginning to get bad.

As I come in, she jumped up, and stood staring at me. I went to thetap, and turned the flow off, and then I gives her a look.

'Now then,' I says.

'How did you get here?'

'Never mind how I got here. What have you got to say for yourself?'

She just began to cry, same as she used to when she was a kid andsomeone had hurt her.

'Here,' I says, 'let's get along out of here, and go where there's someair to breathe. Don't you take on so. You come along out and tell meall about it.'

She started to walk to where I was, and suddenly I seen she waslimping. So I gave her a hand down to my room, and set her on a chair.

'Now then,' I says again.

'Don't be angry with me, Uncle Bill,' she says.

And she looks at me so pitiful that I goes up to her and puts my armround her and pats her on the back.

'Don't you worry, dearie,' I says, 'nobody ain't going to be angry withyou. But, for goodness' sake,' I says, 'tell a man why in the name ofgoodness you ever took and acted so foolish.'

'I wanted to end it all.'

'But why?'

She burst out a-crying again, like a kid.

'Didn't you read about it in the paper, Uncle Bill?'

'Read about what in the paper?'

'My accident. I broke my ankle at rehearsal ever so long ago, practisingmy new dance. The doctors say it will never be right again. I shallnever be able to dance any more. I shall always limp. I shan't even beable to walk properly. And when I thought of that ... and Andy ... andeverything ... I....'

I got on to my feet.

'Well, well, well,' I says. 'Well, well, well! I don't know as I blameyou. But don't you do it. It's a mug's game. Look here, if I leave youalone for half an hour, you won't go trying it on again? Promise.'

'Very well, Uncle Bill. Where are you going?'

'Oh, just out. I'll be back soon. You sit there and rest yourself.'

It didn't take me ten minutes to get to the restaurant in a cab. Ifound Andy in the back room.

'What's the matter, Henry?' he says.

'Take a look at this,' I says.

There's always this risk, mister, in being the Andy type of feller whatmust have his own way and goes straight ahead and has it; and that isthat when trouble does come to him, it comes with a rush. It sometimesseems to me that in this life we've all got to have trouble sooner orlater, and some of us gets it bit by bit, spread out thin, so to speak,and a few of us gets it in a lump--_biff_! And that was whathappened to Andy, and what I knew was going to happen when I showed himthat letter. I nearly says to him, 'Brace up, young feller, becausethis is where you get it.'

I don't often go to the theatre, but when I do I like one of thoseplays with some ginger in them which the papers generally cuss. Thepapers say that real human beings don't carry on in that way. Take itfrom me, mister, they do. I seen a feller on the stage read a letteronce which didn't just suit him; and he gasped and rolled his eyes andtried to say something and couldn't, and had to get a hold on a chairto keep him from falling. There was a piece in the paper saying thatthis was all wrong, and that he wouldn't of done them things in reallife. Believe me, the paper was wrong. There wasn't a thing that fellerdid that Andy didn't do when he read that letter.

'God!' he says. 'Is she ... She isn't.... Were you in time?' he says.

And he looks at me, and I seen that he had got it in the neck, rightenough.

'If you mean is she dead,' I says, 'no, she ain't dead.'

'Thank God!'

'Not yet,' I says.

And the next moment we was out of that room and in the cab and movingquick.

He was never much of a talker, wasn't Andy, and he didn't chat in thatcab. He didn't say a word till we was going up the stairs.

'Where?' he says.

'Here,' I says.

And I opens the door.

Katie was standing looking out of the window. She turned as the dooropened, and then she saw Andy. Her lips parted, as if she was going tosay something, but she didn't say nothing. And Andy, he didn't saynothing, neither. He just looked, and she just looked.

And then he sort of stumbles across the room, and goes down on hisknees, and gets his arms around her.

'Oh, my kid' he says.

* * * * *

And I seen I wasn't wanted, so I shut the door, and I hopped it. I wentand saw the last half of a music-hall. But, I don't know, it didn'tkind of have no fascination for me. You've got to give your mind to itto appreciate good music-hall turns.

ONE TOUCH OF NATURE

The feelings of Mr J. Wilmot Birdsey, as he stood wedged in the crowdthat moved inch by inch towards the gates of the Chelsea FootballGround, rather resembled those of a starving man who has just beengiven a meal but realizes that he is not likely to get another for manydays. He was full and happy. He bubbled over with the joy of living anda warm affection for his fellow-man. At the back of his mind therelurked the black shadow of future privations, but for the moment he didnot allow it to disturb him. On this maddest, merriest day of all theglad New Year he was content to revel in the present and allow thefuture to take care of itself.

Mr Birdsey had been doing something which he had not done since he leftNew York five years ago. He had been watching a game of baseball.

New York lost a great baseball fan when Hugo Percy de WynterFramlinghame, sixth Earl of Carricksteed, married Mae Elinor, onlydaughter of Mr and Mrs J. Wilmot Birdsey of East Seventy-Third Street;for scarcely had that internationally important event taken place whenMrs Birdsey, announcing that for the future the home would be inEngland as near as possible to dear Mae and dear Hugo, scooped J.Wilmot out of his comfortable morris chair as if he had been a clam,corked him up in a swift taxicab, and decanted him into a Deck Bstateroom on the _Olympic_. And there he was, an exile.

Mr Birdsey submitted to the worst bit of kidnapping since the days ofthe old press gang with that delightful amiability which made him sopopular among his fellows and such a cypher in his home. At an earlydate in his married life his position had been clearly defined beyondpossibility of mistake. It was his business to make money, and, whencalled upon, to jump through hoops and sham dead at the bidding of hiswife and daughter Mae. These duties he had been performingconscientiously for a matter of twenty years.

It was only occasionally that his humble role jarred upon him, for heloved his wife and idolized his daughter. The international alliancehad been one of these occasions. He had no objection to Hugo Percy,sixth Earl of Carricksteed. The crushing blow had been the sentence ofexile. He loved baseball with a love passing the love of women, and theprospect of never seeing a game again in his life appalled him.

And then, one morning, like a voice from another world, had come thenews that the White Sox and the Giants were to give an exhibition inLondon at the Chelsea Football Ground. He had counted the days like achild before Christmas.

There had been obstacles to overcome before he could attend the game,but he had overcome them, and had been seated in the front row when thetwo teams lined up before King George.

And now he was moving slowly from the ground with the rest of thespectators. Fate had been very good to him. It had given him a greatgame, even unto two home-runs. But its crowning benevolence had been toallot the seats on either side of him to two men of his own mettle, twogod-like beings who knew every move on the board, and howled likewolves when they did not see eye to eye with the umpire. Long beforethe ninth innings he was feeling towards them the affection of ashipwrecked mariner who meets a couple of boyhood's chums on a desertisland.

As he shouldered his way towards the gate he was aware of these twomen, one on either side of him. He looked at them fondly, trying tomake up his mind which of them he liked best. It was sad to think thatthey must soon go out of his life again for ever.

He came to a sudden resolution. He would postpone the parting. He wouldask them to dinner. Over the best that the Savoy Hotel could providethey would fight the afternoon's battle over again. He did not know whothey were or anything about them, but what did that matter? They werebrother-fans. That was enough for him.

The man on his right was young, clean-shaven, and of a somewhatvulturine cast of countenance. His face was cold and impassive now,almost forbiddingly so; but only half an hour before it had been abattle-field of conflicting emotions, and his hat still showed the dentwhere he had banged it against the edge of his seat on the occasion ofMr Daly's home-run. A worthy guest!

The man on Mr Birdsey's left belonged to another species of fan. Thoughthere had been times during the game when he had howled, for the mostpart he had watched in silence so hungrily tense that a lessexperienced observer than Mr Birdsey might have attributed hisimmobility to boredom. But one glance at his set jaw and gleaming eyestold him that here also was a man and a brother.

This man's eyes were still gleaming, and under their curiously deep tanhis bearded cheeks were pale. He was staring straight in front of himwith an unseeing gaze.

Mr Birdsey tapped the young man on the shoulder.

'Some game!' he said.

The young man looked at him and smiled.

'You bet,' he said.

'I haven't seen a ball-game in five years.'

'The last one I saw was two years ago next June.'

'Come and have some dinner at my hotel and talk it over,' said MrBirdsey impulsively.

'Sure!' said the young man.

Mr Birdsey turned and tapped the shoulder of the man on his left.

The result was a little unexpected. The man gave a start that wasalmost a leap, and the pallor of his face became a sickly white. Hiseyes, as he swung round, met Mr Birdsey's for an instant before theydropped, and there was panic fear in them. His breath whistled softlythrough clenched teeth.

Mr Birdsey was taken aback. The cordiality of the clean-shaven youngman had not prepared him for the possibility of such a reception. Hefelt chilled. He was on the point of apologizing with some murmur abouta mistake, when the man reassured him by smiling. It was rather apainful smile, but it was enough for Mr Birdsey. This man might be of anervous temperament, but his heart was in the right place.

He, too, smiled. He was a small, stout, red-faced little man, and hepossessed a smile that rarely failed to set strangers at their ease.Many strenuous years on the New York Stock Exchange had not destroyed acertain childlike amiability in Mr Birdsey, and it shone out when hesmiled at you.

'I'm afraid I startled you,' he said soothingly. 'I wanted to ask youif you would let a perfect stranger, who also happens to be an exile,offer you dinner tonight.'

The man winced. 'Exile?'

'An exiled fan. Don't you feel that the Polo Grounds are a good longway away? This gentleman is joining me. I have a suite at the SavoyHotel, and I thought we might all have a quiet little dinner there andtalk about the game. I haven't seen a ball-game in five years.'

'Nor have I.'

'Then you must come. You really must. We fans ought to stick to oneanother in a strange land. Do come.'

'Thank you,' said the bearded man; 'I will.'

When three men, all strangers, sit down to dinner together,conversation, even if they happen to have a mutual passion forbaseball, is apt to be for a while a little difficult. The first finefrenzy in which Mr Birdsey had issued his invitations had begun to ebbby the time the soup was served, and he was conscious of a feeling ofembarrassment.

There was some subtle hitch in the orderly progress of affairs. Hesensed it in the air. Both of his guests were disposed to silence, andthe clean-shaven young man had developed a trick of staring at the manwith the beard, which was obviously distressing that sensitive person.

'Wine,' murmured Mr Birdsey to the waiter. 'Wine, wine!'

He spoke with the earnestness of a general calling up his reserves forthe grand attack. The success of this little dinner mattered enormouslyto him. There were circumstances which were going to make it an oasisin his life. He wanted it to be an occasion to which, in grey days tocome, he could look back and be consoled. He could not let it be afailure.

He was about to speak when the young man anticipated him. Leaningforward, he addressed the bearded man, who was crumbling bread with anabsent look in his eyes.

'Surely we have met before?' he said. 'I'm sure I remember your face.'

The effect of these words on the other was as curious as the effect ofMr Birdsey's tap on the shoulder had been. He looked up like a huntedanimal.

He shook his head without speaking.

'Curious,' said the young man. 'I could have sworn to it, and I ampositive that it was somewhere in New York. Do you come from New York?'

'Yes.'

'It seems to me,' said Mr Birdsey, 'that we ought to introduceourselves. Funny it didn't strike any of us before. My name is Birdsey,J. Wilmot Birdsey. I come from New York.'

'My name is Waterall,' said the young man. 'I come from New York.'

The bearded man hesitated.

'My name is Johnson. I--used to live in New York.'

'Where do you live now, Mr Johnson?' asked Waterall.

The bearded man hesitated again. 'Algiers,' he said.

Mr Birdsey was inspired to help matters along with small-talk.

'Algiers,' he said. 'I have never been there, but I understand that itis quite a place. Are you in business there, Mr Johnson?'

'I live there for my health.'

'Have you been there some time?' inquired Waterall.

'Five years.'

'Then it must have been in New York that I saw you, for I have neverbeen to Algiers, and I'm certain I have seen you somewhere. I'm afraidyou will think me a bore for sticking to the point like this, but thefact is, the one thing I pride myself on is my memory for faces. It's ahobby of mine. If I think I remember a face, and can't place it, Iworry myself into insomnia. It's partly sheer vanity, and partlybecause in my job a good memory for faces is a mighty fine asset. Ithas helped me a hundred times.'

Mr Birdsey was an intelligent man, and he could see that Waterall'stable-talk was for some reason getting upon Johnson's nerves. Like agood host, he endeavoured to cut in and make things smooth.

'I've heard great accounts of Algiers,' he said helpfully. 'A friend ofmine was there in his yacht last year. It must be a delightful spot.'

'It's a hell on earth,' snapped Johnson, and slew the conversation onthe spot.

Through a grim silence an angel in human form fluttered in--a waiterbearing a bottle. The pop of the cork was more than music to MrBirdsey's ears. It was the booming of the guns of the relieving army.

The first glass, as first glasses will, thawed the bearded man, to theextent of inducing him to try and pick up the fragments of theconversation which he had shattered.

'I am afraid you will have thought me abrupt, Mr Birdsey,' he saidawkwardly; 'but then you haven't lived in Algiers for five years, and Ihave.'

Mr Birdsey chirruped sympathetically.

'I liked it at first. It looked mighty good to me. But five years of it,and nothing else to look forward to till you die....'

He stopped, and emptied his glass. Mr Birdsey was still perturbed.True, conversation was proceeding in a sort of way, but it had taken adistinctly gloomy turn. Slightly flushed with the excellent champagnewhich he had selected for this important dinner, he endeavoured tolighten it.

'I wonder,' he said, 'which of us three fans had the greatestdifficulty in getting to the bleachers today. I guess none of us foundit too easy.'

The young man shook his head.

'Don't count on me to contribute a romantic story to this ArabianNight's Entertainment. My difficulty would have been to stop away. Myname's Waterall, and I'm the London correspondent of the _New YorkChronicle_. I had to be there this afternoon in the way ofbusiness.'

Mr Birdsey giggled self-consciously, but not without a certain impishpride.

'The laugh will be on me when you hear my confession. My daughtermarried an English earl, and my wife brought me over here to mix withhis crowd. There was a big dinner-party tonight, at which the wholegang were to be present, and it was as much as my life was worth toside-step it. But when you get the Giants and the White Sox playingball within fifty miles of you--Well, I packed a grip and sneaked outthe back way, and got to the station and caught the fast train toLondon. And what is going on back there at this moment I don't like tothink. About now,' said Mr Birdsey, looking at his watch, 'I guessthey'll be pronging the _hors d'oeuvres_ and gazing at the emptychair. It was a shame to do it, but, for the love of Mike, what elsecould I have done?'

He looked at the bearded man.

'Did you have any adventures, Mr Johnson?'

'No. I--I just came.'

The young man Waterall leaned forward. His manner was quiet, but hiseyes were glittering.

'Wasn't that enough of an adventure for you?' he said.

Their eyes met across the table. Seated between them, Mr Birdsey lookedfrom one to the other, vaguely disturbed. Something was happening, adrama was going on, and he had not the key to it.

Johnson's face was pale, and the tablecloth crumpled into a crookedridge under his fingers, but his voice was steady as he replied:

'I don't understand.'

'Will you understand if I give you your right name, Mr Benyon?'

'What's all this?' said Mr Birdsey feebly.

Waterall turned to him, the vulturine cast of his face more noticeablethan ever. Mr Birdsey was conscious of a sudden distaste for this youngman.

'It's quite simple, Mr Birdsey. If you have not been entertainingangels unawares, you have at least been giving a dinner to a celebrity.I told you I was sure I had seen this gentleman before. I have justremembered where, and when. This is Mr John Benyon, and I last saw himfive years ago when I was a reporter in New York, and covered histrial.'

'His trial?'

'He robbed the New Asiatic Bank of a hundred thousand dollars, jumpedhis bail, and was never heard of again.'

'For the love of Mike!'

Mr Birdsey stared at his guest with eyes that grew momently wider. Hewas amazed to find that deep down in him there was an unmistakablefeeling of elation. He had made up his mind, when he left home thatmorning, that this was to be a day of days. Well, nobody could callthis an anti-climax.

'So that's why you have been living in Algiers?'

Benyon did not reply. Outside, the Strand traffic sent a faint murmurinto the warm, comfortable room.

Waterall spoke. 'What on earth induced you, Benyon, to run the risk ofcoming to London, where every second man you meet is a New Yorker, I